While “Hakuna Matata” might sum up life for the meerkat Timon and his warthog friend Pumbaa in Disney’s The Lion King, real meerkats (Suricata suricatta) have a bit more to worry about. Indeed, as one of southern Africa’s smallest mammals, measuring about 11 inches (0.27 meters) in length, with a tail a bit longer than half that, and weighing less than 2.2 pounds (1 kg), meerkats are highly susceptible to attack from ground-dwelling and airborne predators, including jackals and snakes and eagles and hawks.

Meerkats do, however, enjoy a very social existence, lending perhaps an air of Hakuna Matata, or at least a “problem-free philosophy,” to their daily lives. Their social bonds, in fact, play a key role in their survival and influence their behavior. For example, the famous “sentinel posture”—standing upright on the hindlegs to survey the surroundings for predators—as well as their vocalizations to warn others of danger are behaviors that every meerkat learns and performs to protect itself and the pack.

Not surprisingly, meerkat societies are tight-knit. According to Britannica’s meerkat article:

Meerkats live in cooperative packs of 3 to 25 with partially overlapping home ranges of a few square kilometres, which they mark with secretions of the anal glands. Packs will chase or fight one another if they meet. Meerkats shelter in burrow systems having multiple entrances and measuring up to 5 metres (16 feet) across. Several levels of tunnels and chambers extend to 1.5 metres below ground. Each home range contains about five such warrens. Packs spend the night inside, and pups are born there. They also retreat into their tunnels for an afternoon rest to avoid the heat of midday.

Packs also forage together, often spending five to eight hours each day in search of insects and spiders and small lizards, birds, rodents, and other prey. While hunting, individuals stay within several feet of one another and communicate through quiet vocalizations.

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Meerkats are members of the mongoose family (Herpestidae). They are distinguished from related species, such as the yellow mongoose (Cynictis penicillata), by their slender, pointed face, small ears, black eye patches, and black-tipped tail; their narrow, four-toed feet; and their gray or tan coat, which is marked by dark bars across the back.